Dankology

This: exactly this. The vultures are always circling and once our small venues are gone they won't be coming back. Certainly not in their original, unique, characterful buildings.

Inspired by these snippets I bought two of Deke's books direct from Mickey - and I'm savouring every word. One of my happiest purchases ever - and as someone with a fairly vast library of rock books I can't quite understand why I didn't come across them before.

I'm hardly a fan but I thoroughly enjoyed the film Gibbons and Frank Beard were particularly good value for money - particularly the latter's refreshingly honest take on hard drugs.

Excellent call! I thought I was the only one who remembered them... Funnily enough I found an old mini-album/maxi-single of theirs that I'd entirely forgotten about in a box last week. I suppose you could argue the semantics of "underrated" vs "forgotten about/ignored" if you were being picky.

I've really enjoyed reading these excerpts - which book are they from? Or if they're from several - where best to start? This last chunk led me to read up on Johnny Kidd - I'd always read that he'd died in Radcliffe but I hadn't realized that his car crash was actually in Bolton, just moments from my childhood home and within sight of my aunty and uncle's house.

If this whole country isn't on shutdown by then, please consider coming seeing my band at Retro Bar... I'll link to our last single below but we're hard at work on our next one and this gig should serve as a launch night if all goes to plan. Tickets are available here: https://fatso.ma/T4ZM but I've got a wodge of satisfyingly 1990s-looking paper tickets here if you prefer. Facebook event page is here: https://www.facebook.com/events/858578724566086/ Our Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/joanthewadmusic/ Our Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5rtswctt-Lqzb6G9Nd5ybA Last single:

I think we're probably making the same point here. The only difference being that I would regard understanding the use of plugins to be integral to engineering skills you mention above. I'd bet the engineer that you used was in large part using his expertise with the hardware equivalents of the software plugins we use at home. And, no doubt, a raft of plugins too. I reckon for something to sound good it has to be well played, recorded, mixed and mastered - and arguably in that order of importance. With the electronica that the OP is working on at least the engineering side can be a little more straightforward. Unless he's setting up all his sequencers around a single mic for a classic 1950s sound...

Not sure how many house tracks came out of Sun and Chess... Or whether theirs is the aesthetic the OP is aiming for 🙂

A handful of premium microphones and utterly fabulous rooms - neither of which your average home recordist has access to. Nor most modern working studios for that matter.

I get what you are saying but knowing which pieces of equipment and plugins are needed and how to use them is an integral part of the process. I'm not sure you can get the results the OP wants without a working knowledge of (and healthy stock) of decent plugins.

I wouldn't say that this sounds particularly homemade to me but it isn't really my genre so the subtleties may be lost on me. In general though, I find that digital recording and anything other than hugely expensive interfaces lend a too-clean quality to the highs which often ends up with mixes sounding a bit cheap. I would make sure that any guitars are recorded with mics on amps (rather than DI'd) and I often try putting keys and such through an amp sim plug in (but perhaps only mix the effect in 50/50, say). I would also experiment with putting the whole mix (and/or individual instruments) through a tape sim plug in (Variety of Sound do a great free one). The Baxter eq plug in is a powerful but subtle bus eq that I use on everything to tame that harshness/cleaness that betrays home recordings. I think there's a good argument for putting the main mix through a subtle compressor and a tiny bit of reverb just to mush everything together: somehow this glues everything together in a way that makes a coherent whole. I think the great limiter is in terms of vocal sounds - without a nice condenser and some acoustic treatment in your room it is very difficult to get a truly polished and pro sound but there are still ways and means to get 90% there. If you are recording mainly non-vocal stuff, it's a little easier. One last thought: I almost always find that if I've recorded something (or seen it being recorded) it is *very* difficult to hear it as I would someone else's record - I hear the flaws, the compressors, the reverb... I even see the singers at the mic - but when I hear a great record, I just hear music. YMMV

Argh. Just as we were about to set off we got a message from the rep: the headline act had been involved in a car crash and had to drop out - could we bring the back line? Just as were about to finish repacking the cars with drums and my amp we got a further message saying that the promoters had pulled the gig entirely. Unpacked, listened to to some recent studio work, nice meal out then back for an abreviated rehearsal... It was quite lovely all in all. The other band are ok, thankfully. Roll on Retro bar! Thanks for asking 😀

Bloody hell. That's going to need sorting out. Thank you!

Thank you! Blueprint always looks like a fabulous place to rehearse in. We're at Retro Bar on 28th March, closing as mismatched a four-band bill as I've ever seen...

If anyone in Salford/Manchester is at a loose end please consider coming down to the Eagle Inn tonight to catch my lovely band supporting the excellent China Moon. Apologies: last moment cancellation due to the headliners being involved in a car crash (thankfully all are well).

It isn't in the 2006-2012 edition, if that's any help in your search...

I went looking for the Montreux CD after Hollis died and the prices were a bit silly. Didn't think to look at the DVD... Might go and check out Ebay now... edit: sorry, it was the London 86 cd i was after...

Can I respectfully suggest that you not do this? Instead I'd recommend that you purchase it in the format of your preference, set aside an evening when you'll be undisturbed, treat yourself to a premium version of your beverage of choice and then play it from end-to-end and immerse yourself in its unspeakable beauty. The first time I ever heard Spirit of Eden is indelibly imprinted on my memory: a friend brought it round after a gig and played it at ear-splitting volume at far too late an hour. Love at first sight/sound.

Here's the recording of Franz from 2012: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1syXn7CRAck6mPlDDanEjjTr_puoqnIJh (zipped MP3s - can upload FLACS if anyone wants them) The run from Track 4 - 7 is quite wonderful.

Love them! The album that Stuck Between the Stations is from is particularly good - the song First Night on there is one of my favourite songs of all time. You can get it really cheap with a bonus acoustic live disc too. Franz Nicolay's solo stuff is very good too (although he covers a very wide range of genres...) His Do the Struggle LP is worth checking out. I made a great recording of him touring that album that I could upload if anyone wants a listen.

Tiny northwestern town here - can't move for open mics, at least two or three venues putting on original bands, most pubs put covers bands or singers on regularly - we must have it pretty good.

Please listen, comment and share as you see fit...

Re burglaries - when a friend of mine was broken into, the robbers left two very nice guitars that he had out on stands but stole the two near-worthless ones he'd left in their cases. Convenience and portability clearly being the priority...

I think the whole point of musicians' interviews (outside of the highly technical but usually otherwise mundane/inane ones instrument mags) is to cater to the the very natural need the public have to better understand the people whose art has affected them. The artists themselves often value the opportunity to contextualize and add perspective. So the examples you list above are really the "normal" stuff: artists talking about the things their fans want to know about. This is not some "preoccupation with the inner artist" - this is someone doing the job that people want them to do: the alternative would be the unchallenging, technical, hagiographic approach of the instrument-specific magazines. Van has a long history of not indulging the former approach and often striving to characterize his art as "work", expressing frustration that interviewers (and people in general) are not sufficiently aware of the artists that he apparently holds dear. This interviewer seemed to know this and took a pragmatic approach and yet he still acted like a spoilt child, and didn't even have a pithy retort to hand. As I say above, he has no need to do any interviews - he could have made it part of his current contract or even provided interviewers with a list of pre-approved topics or questions. But he doesn't, he prefers to play the curmudgeon - when it would be far more eloquent (and befitting of his artistic legacy) to say nothing at all.

To be fair, I think she was trying to do the exact opposite of that and actually tried to engage him about the practicalities of his job rather than trying to tease out any hidden meanings. And she successfully called his bluff too (or rather he tried and failed to call hers) when the topic shifted onto his preferred jazz musicians. I'd wager that the journalist knew *exactly* what to expect and was taking a circumspect approach. Despite this Van, artlessly and irrelevantly, used all his standard "defenses"... I mean, does asking about why a couple of old songs have been exhumed really count as a "psychiatric interview" or "intellectual debate"? It almost sounds like he nearly let the facade slip when the journalist in desperation actually appealed to some sort of personal connection - the exact opposite of how many of his interviews play out. I'm a huge fan of his music but I've not read one word about Morrison that suggests he's anything other than a deeply unpleasant man who revels in being contrary. And I don't buy that he only entertains interviewers under record company duress: this is a man who has kept some of his finest work out of print for years in order to maintain industry grudges. And I'm fairly certain that the same old lags will be buying his current LP regardless of whether the broadsheets run a feature on it or not. I can only read him one of two ways: he's either constantly reaching out to connect (hence his massive output) but is uncomfortable with/embarrassed by this OR he genuinely is joylessly doing the only job he can, and just happens to be brilliant at it.